Scope

This document on best practices for sensor networks and sensor data management provides information for establishing and managing a fixed environmental sensor network for on or near surface point measurements with the purpose of long-term or “permanent” environmental data acquisition. It does not cover remotely sensed data (satellite imagery, aerial photography, etc.), although a few marginal cases where this distinction is not entirely clear are discussed, e.g., phenology and animal behavior webcams. The best practices covered in this document may not all apply to temporary or transitory sensing efforts such as distributed “citizen science” initiatives, which do not focus on building infrastructure. Furthermore, it is assumed that the scientific goals for establishing a sensor network are thought out and discussed with all members of the team responsible for establishing and maintaining the sensor network. i.e., appropriateness of certain sensors or installations to answer specific questions are not discussed. Information is provided here for various stages of establishing and maintaining an environmental sensor network: planning a completely new system, upgrading an existing system, improving streaming data management, and archiving data.

Get Involved

Below are chapters of a living document to which contributions can be made by anybody interested in this subject. Please post questions, answers, experiences with particular software/hardware/setup, comments, additions, edits, resources, and publications. Please use common online etiquette. If conflicting views arise they should be discussed in the envirosensing e-mail list.

Contributors

Each chapter has a lead editor who is responsible for periodically compiling comments and contributions into stable versions of this document which will be archived as PDF versions and can be found here. If you contribute to this document by editing or adding text, images or comments you agree to the use of that material in the regularly published PDF versions of this document. Please add your name to the list of contributors if you feel you made a significant contribution.

Renee F. Brown, Sevilleta LTER, rfbrown at sevilleta.unm.edu

Richard Cary, Coweeta LTER, rcary1 at uga.edu

Corinna Gries, North Temperate Lakes LTER, cgries at wisc.edu

Don Henshaw, Andrews LTER, don.henshaw at oregonstate.edu

Christopher Jones, National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, cjones at nceas.ucsb.edu